Why?

She travels the world, gathering social contacts like push pins--colourful and in just below the surface. For as long as I've known her, treasures have been within reach, but she covers them in mud continuously, as if that were her job. But she has no job. No paying job, that is. And yet, she is the busiest person I know. Hours of every day are spent weaving a future that will only bring deep disappointment. If she'd look up from the work, even momentarily, she'd she that. In fact, I think she does, from time to time, and it sets her running, frantically, to gather, to collect, to trap evidence of her supposed brilliance like a spider hanging future meals in a web. This makes me sad. It also makes me curious. How can we be that close to death and not smell the darkness?